Armed Forces Qualification Test

| December 6, 2022


“It’s Not Just a Job, It’s An Adventure”

Most here already know this but for the benefit of the rest, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude test, or ASVAB, is designed to determine a potential recruit’s occupational fit in the military. There is no overall ASVAB score.

The Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) is scored by combining points scored on four of the ASVAB subtests. The raw score is then translated into a percentile and ranked to determine a candidate’s basic eligibility and placement. In the Navy that translates into one’s potential Naval Enlisted Classification code (NEC) and rating. I’ll spare you the details.

Due to circumstances that may have been mentioned here, recruiting is markedly down. Every branch of the military is struggling to meet its FY 2022 recruiting quotas; so much so that that the continuation of the all-volunteer force has been questioned. Spox say the Pentagon’s top leaders are now casting for ways to find new recruits. Panic mode, in other words.

My Navy has come up with a remarkedly bad idea.

Navy to Accept Recruits with Lowest Test Scores as Recruiting Goal Grows

By Drew F. Lawrence

The Navy unveiled new guidelines Monday that allow the service to enlist thousands of sailors with entrance test scores that fall into the lowest aptitude percentile allowed by military standards as it faces a higher recruiting goal, according to a notice from Navy Recruiting Command reviewed by Military.com.

Under the program, the service can recruit and contract up to 7,500 prospective sailors this year who fall under what the military calls “Category IV” recruits, or high school diploma-holding applicants who score within the 10th and 30th percentile on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, or AFQT. Up to 20% of this year’s active-duty enlisted pool could fall into the lowest allowable aptitude percentile.

The military has struggled with recruiting this year and, while it appears that the Navy is in calmer waters compared to its sister branches, namely the Army, the sea service squeaked by last year’s active-duty enlistment goal by just 42 sailors. Now, it’s been handed a goal that has been increased by more than 4,000 applicants, and the pressure to get prospective sailors to raise their right hand is high.

“As we continue to navigate a challenging recruiting environment, changing the AFQT requirement removes a potential barrier to enlistment, allowing us to widen the pool of potential recruits and creating opportunities for personnel who wish to serve,” Cmdr. David Benham, spokesperson for Commander, Navy Recruiting Command, told Military.com via email Monday.

Military.com

Spoken like a good little Bundist. Any other requirement(s) in the way, Commander?

Thanks to the usual suspects who put this on the radar, and AW1 Rod for the links. Dear God. I was LPO of a shop full of smart people…

Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", Big Pentagon, Guest Link, Navy, The Stupid is Strong

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Andy11M

I’m sure there will be absolutely no correlation between this and a rise in discipline problems and people failing to complete their initial enlistments.

AW1 Rod

NRC doesn’t care. They’re not thinking long-term. They only care about making quota.

Let the COs of the commands to which these retards and fuckups will be assigned worry about those problems!

Graybeard

I was private security, not military, but had that very situation.
Got dinged for my high turnover rate when I got rid of the deadwood that should’a never made it to the field.

Hack Stone

It’s not as if the people who made this decision will have to work alongside them.

HT3

Falling ASVAB scores are an indictment of the failing education system. The Indoctrination Centers churn out scores of woke parrots that have NO EFFING clue. At least the soy boy progressives are lining up for The Big V and ending the drain their blood line will cause future generations. Hey, gotta look at the positives…right?

MCPO USN

Load up on the windex for the new window lickers….

AW1 Rod

.

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SFC D

Careful there, that could be the MCPON shortly.

MustangCryppie

Wow! 10th to 30th percentile. Scary.

Anonymous

Worked for Forrest Gump! /sarc

Roh-Dog

Yep. I’m starting to think this shit is intentional.

At least they can’t really hurt anyone, right “‘Sergeant'” Bronson? (see below)

Learn how to defend yourselves from …. fruit.

Woke-Army-Sergeant-1110x740.png.jpeg
Reddawg_03

Of course its intentional

26Limabeans

“The Navy unveiled new guidelines”

Phew, at least they still allow only the brightest into ARMY….

Amateur Historian

Wasn’t there also a trans Army medical officer trying to sell PII/PHI to the Russians not too long ago?

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2022/09/29/ex-army-doctor-tried-to-give-military-medical-info-to-russia-feds-say/

Anonymous

Plus this guy:
comment image

Hack Stone

AS usual, Hack Stone is confused. Why is the military lowering the minimum scores for enlistment since they opened the door for the LBGQT+ community to proudly serve? We have been told the Biden – Harris Administration that this demographic is just as patriotic as every other American, and they are eager to serve.

Roh-Dog

Perhaps their calculus was off, ever so slightly. (see image)

It’s hard to be fabulous in drab.

inauguration.png
Friend

My granddaughter has friend that failed two written tests to join the Navy. Last test she scored 3 out of 33 questions..is this how they really test or is she not telling the whole story?

David

Place I used to work at had an intern who wanted to join the Navy – but failed the ASVAB. When she announced she REALLY wanted in and was taking it (a third time, I believe) one of her coworkers asked “Why, are they short of anchors?” (Yes, that became her nickname)
She was a bit slow, complained at a lunch one day that her chicken fried steak didn’t taste like chicken very much. True story.

Hack Stone

Back in the day when Hack Stone was recruiting in the Midwest, there was a girl who wanted to enlist in the Corps. At that time, those who identified as female were required to score a minimum of 50 AFQT on the ASVAB, as they were not eligible to serve in combat arms, which had a lower threshold to enlist. Anyway, Recruiters have a “practice ASVAB” that they would give to the potential enlistees, to see if they have enough to pass the actual ASVAB, which is quite a bit more stringent, costs some amount of money, and limited to how many times that you could test. So she took the real ASVAB and rocked. 30 day wait. Took it it again, and still failed. Now it is a six month wait until she could test again. Hack would not schedule her for another test until he was confident that she could pass. She was getting angry, so she had the Air Force Recruiter test her. Did she pass? Nope! See you in two years.

MustangCryppie

Now that I think about it, we probably were letting rocks like this in way back in the 80s.

I was TAD to a ship back in the day and a shipmate was telling me how he was messing with a female boot.

He sent her around the ship looking for a FALLOPIAN TUBE. Of course, she didn’t find it…and she didn’t catch on cause he sent her out looking for the same thing the next day and SHE WENT!

I met her and yes, she was dumber than a box of rocks.

Hack Stone

Forest Bondurant

The sci-fi comedy “Idiocracy” (described where the world has become “dystopian”, “dumbed-down by mass commercialism and rampant anti-intellectualism” and “dominated by low culture”) is rapidly becoming nonfiction.

MustangCryppie

Oh, I think we passed that milestone a LOOOOONG time ago!

Messkit

Every one of these idiots, however, will know all of the Kardshian’s bra sizes–including Caitlyn’s, and insist they are worth $15 an hour.

A Proud Infidel®™

They demand at least a $15 an hour wage while having maybe a $2 – $3 an hour work ethic!

Forest Bondurant

“Brondo has electrolytes, because that’s what plants crave.”

rgr769

That’s why everyone loves Bronson.

rgr769

Brondo, dammmit.

Anonymous

Yeah, baby!

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rgr769

Diss jus so rayciss. He mosly only ax black peeples.

George V

As soon as I saw the “It’s not a job….” slogan I thought of that SNL fake advertisement, and there it was just one click of the scroll button away. I was serving when that came out – it was a hit. Come to think of it, SNL was actually funny back then.

On the recruitment standards, I pity the division officers and chiefs, at least the ones who haven’t drunk the kool-aid. In the late 1970’s standards were lax enough that there was plenty of discussions about problematic sailors and how to “manage them out of the Navy.”

Hack Stone

You know, a careless Sailor could accidentally fall overboard, and nobody would notice. Just saying…

Graybeard

Get a warm body in there to meet some goals without keeping the goal of defending our country from threats.

I foresee more mid-air collisions, ships running amok, dead service members, drug problems…

A Proud Infidel®™

Gang situations, …

Forest Bondurant

Excellent point actually. If there wasn’t a systemic racist ir extremist problem in the military, this sort of idea will certainly develop the conditions for it to become more apparent.

Amateur Historian

*Sigh* I suppose it’s back to crashing ships into freighters and spending a few weeks doing SAR operations for a sailor who is just hiding in the engine room, covered in his own feces.

BlueCord Dad

“Robert McNamara call your office.”

Devtun

Robert will be back later. He’s out voting for Warnock in the Georgia runoff.

Roh-Dog

“Vietnam, go to sleep!” — (allegedly) LTC McNamara

Veritas Omnia Vincit

With the Literacy Project revealing that 54% of Americans can’t read or comprehend beyond that of the average middle schooler I fear this was an eventual reality regardless of the net effect on the military’s capabilities.

Our education system is failing us rather massively even while we spend more than all but two nations on educating our children.

The revelation that this many of our fellow Americans are relatively incapable of parsing complex, multiple source, concepts does, however, explain a great deal.

An uneducated populace, or relatively uneducated populace is far more easily induced into accepting an ever smaller amount of liberty as a necessity of their life in these United States.

It doesn’t bode well for the military or the nation at large however. It makes me wonder at what point will our fellow Americans refuse to comply, or will they simply choose to go along and allow this great nation to fade into obscurity?

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Thanks bro, it’s been a year….

Sparks

Good to see you again VOV.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Thanks Sparks, good to be back.

KoB

VOV, these retards could all use a dose of the summer school education you gave on the Constitution and what it means awhile back. Welcome Home. Can I buy you a refreshing beverage? You’ve been missed.

A recruit should not only be able to breathe and have a pulse, but also have enough sense to know when to breathe and to learn how not to bleed. Dumbing it all down to the lowest common denominator. The modern lib school system grins.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-dumbing-down-of-america-by-design/5395928

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Thanks for the kind words…it’s been a long year my friend…glad to move forward into the next one at this point.

poetrooper

Truly wonderful to have you back on the scene, VoV. Your always insightful comments have been missed and sometimes badly needed.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Thank Poe, glad to see you’re still on the planet with us as well!!

USMCMSgt (Ret)

Welcome Back VoV!

Anonymous

Just sayin’:

Av8or33

So the Navy is going to reach down to the bottom of the retard barrel to get warm bodies, the other services will follow. The government will never face the root causes of the shortage of recruits, incompetent leadership, political and military, the woke policies and general incompetence that DEI initiatives have brought about. Further more military service isn’t even thought of as challenging or masculine anymore most kids with options have no reason to serve, and believe me their friends that have joined are very vocal about what a mistake they made.

rgr769

Gee, this new Navy recruit standard ought to turn out well what the Navy operating all that simple hardware like nuke subs, aircraft carriers, and all that other low tech stuff.

Hack Stone

And just what billet would these Cat IV Sailors be filling? Master Chief already has enough morons to chip paint, he needs Sailors who can keep the ship moving.

26Limabeans

Oilers assistant. Is that a thing?

Mick

Ha!

That Sailor should be wearing a blue flight deck jersey and a blue cranial for the full effect.

Humping chocks and tie down chains all day/all night up on the flight deck.

Oh yeah.

Hack Stone

MCPO: Seaman Recruit Numbnuts, I need you on the deck with 120 pounds of chains draped around your neck.

Seaman Recruit Numbnuts: But Master Chief, this isn’t an aircraft carrier.

MCPO: I know, but you never know when an aircraft may attempt to land.

timactual

Judging from most of the pictures I have seen, chipping paint is no longer included in the Plan of the Day.

NEC338x

My thought as well. I originally thought it might be the paint reformulated to Save the Environment (TM). Now I suspect it may be sailor reformulation.

Jay

Reason 437B that I’m glad I’m no longer on active duty to deal with this fresh batch of retard, nor on recruiting trying to turn the rocks over to FIND them.

NDHoosier

Scene from a recruiting office:

Recruiter: Are you gay?
Recruit: Yes

Recruiter: Are you a member of BLM?
Recruit: Yes

Recruiter: Are you a member of Antifa?
Recruit: Yes

Recruiter: Do you smoke marijuana?
Recruit: Yes

Recruiter: Have you graduated from high school?
Recruit: No

Recruiter: Have you ever held a job?
Recruit: No

Recruiter: We have an open billet for Chief of Naval Operations. Sign here please.

Hack Stone

First thing these Cat IV Einsteins are going to do while home on Boot Leave is marry their 13 year old sweetheart, then drag her off to the 32nd Street Navy Yard and start pumping out babies, with all of their household furnishings provided by the lovely people at Devon Home Furniture. Master Chief will the4n assign some PO3 to pick up Numbnuts every day and drive him to work, since the car that he financed was repossessed. And thye day that he doesn’t show up and the Command goes out to his Base Housing Quarters, they will discover a townhouse with wall to wall dogshit and soiled baby diapers, and the stove will have a pot of dried out Mac & Cheese, with a wooden spoon welded to it that has been sitting out for the last two weeks.

We’ve all been there, seen that.

USMCMSgt (Ret)

…and on the curb waiting for trash pickup will be cases of crushed empty beer cans, grubby children between the ages of 3 and 8 running amok around the yard and in the house, and heaps of dirty laundry everywhere.

Mick

…and then Numbnuts’s NCOIC, SNCOIC, OIC, SgtMaj, XO, and CO will all be blamed and held directly responsible for all of the incredibly stupid shit that Numbnuts has done, and they’ll be accused of not “taking care” of the poor little darling properly in a “hostile command climate”.

Been there, and seen that, too.

Roh-Dog

Gents, we’re overlooked the reason Seaman Fuckface goes AWOL: a meth still fire that took out the babies’ room closet.

Andy11M

You forgot buying a 10 year old Mustang from the blacktop dealership on the main drag outside the main gate at double digit interest and either wrecking it with no insurance, or blowing the engine and leaving it to rott.

A Proud Infidel®™

Or he buys a compact Mazda and then blows at least $6000 on credit outfitting it with a stereo system, tacky chrome mags, a halfass-applied aftermarket vinyl top, custom upholstery and then his 1SG has to deal with the fallout from PVT Flop partying with his paycheck instead of making payments on all that worthless crap.

USMCMSgt (Ret)

Used to be 3 or 4 dealerships like that around Oceanside and Fallbrook, CA (Camp Pendleton) years ago, and every one of them had signage out front that read:

“We finance E-1’s and Up. Bring us your LES!” (or something along those lines)

Noticed the last time I was stationed at Pendleton, all but one of those dealerships had closed.

Hack Stone

Back in 1986, there was a dealership outside of Camp Lejeune that was a bit more discerning, They only financed E2 and up.

11B-Mailclerk

Consider how badly the Left wants folks like us, with our attitudes, reducated into willing leftioids. Thus all the drivel currently inflicted in the armed forces.

But folks like us are now -not- enlisting in the re-education camps formerly called “the armed forces”.

What to do? The targets are escaping “reeducation”. Draft. Probably as early as next year.

Justify it by the poor results of a “volunteer” system. Draft boards will focus on anyone not yet Leftoid. The hard-marxoids in college will be exempt, yes? The sons of various princelings will have their parents pay the bribes to exempt that spawn. The illegals won’t show on any elligibility lists. The bangers and hoodlums won’t show up. If they still get tagged somehow, they will jump to the “prison” MOS path.

Who will that leave to be scooped up for indoc and reprog?

Come and see….

Roh-Dog

You have a’many valid points (see below).

About draft boards, now is the time to submit applications and get on those MFers, or suffer your prediction.

I’m ineligible due to being retired. Some of you ain’t and everyone knows a person that could/should do it.

Lord knows I’ve been beating this drum to my local VSOs and friends.

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USMC Steve

This time both for male and female, and all the gender benders as well. Gotta be equal always.

rgr769

I think you mean “willing and compliant leftoids.”

timactual

Draft?

The sooner the better. I am betting it will take a year or two just to get the system up and running, what with legal challenges,protests, political opposition, etc. Best to get all that crap over with before we really need a draft.

Av8or33

Forcing people to serve doesn’t solve the root causes of the problem.Horrible leadership, social engineering, and the last two decades of some of our best people keeping the faith and doing an incredible job sacrificing for a country they love and believe in and then our political class just throws their accomplishments and sacrifices away and cedes control of Afghanistan back to the same animals as before. I’m sick over what has happened to these people.I can’t imagine multiple deployments to the armpit of the world and liberating the people from medieval tyranny all to see a doddering old man and his corrupt cronies shit on their honorable service. I’m sorry but I’ve always been a very patriotic person and proud of my limited service to our great country, I can’t believe what we are becoming.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Nothing wrong with sacrificing for your nation in a war for survival, the issue with these past 20 years is that we were not, in point of fact, fighting for our survival. There was never the danger that Afghanistan or Iraq could take our nation over. And there was never a chance that our political leadership was ever going to declare war on either nation. When we declare war on a concept such as terror, drugs, poverty, etc…it’s never as simple as picking an enemy and fighting, it’s purposely obtuse and there’s never actually any plan to define what constitutes a successful outcome.

What happens instead in each of those wars is our own government intruding into our Bill of Rights protections. No knock warrants, asset forfeiture, spying on American citizens, people suggesting we limit speech, none of these are features of a free society.

Av8or33

No argument with your reasoning, but our government did get involved and did spend twenty years there and our young service members paid a price. We did make commitments to the people of of Afghanistan, to our allies and to our service members our government abandoned them and broke faith with all of the above and families of the fallen and Americans in general. I’m not going to argue if we should have been there in the first place, that ship sailed twenty years ago.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

All of what you say is true, I’ve no quarrel with that. It diminishes us I believe in the world as we’ve shown our word as proclaimed by our politicians isn’t worth much anymore.

Nothing I wrote was meant to diminish the personal commitment of the troops to each other and our allies on the ground.

Av8or33

I never thought you did. And I wholeheartedly agree with your reasoning, I’m just angry that our leadership has no principles or honor and the people who do are the ones that pay the price.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

It was and remains my friend, ever thus…

timactual

“We did make commitments to the people of of Afghanistan”

What were those commitments? Specifically?

Av8or33

Look up U.S. commitments to Afghanistan George W Bush and read the link to the White House archives. I can’t get it to clip.

timactual

Found a lot of PR BS about what we are doing to improve the country, but no promises or commitments.

Anonymous

80 (IQ) and go. Multiple retests allowed.

Last edited 1 year ago by Anonymous
Claw

Just saw an article in the Military Times that the BAS (Basic Allowance for Subsistence) to going to increase by 11% for FY24. It will be the biggest jump in 21 years and the enlisted rate will be $452.56 per month, an increase of $45.58 per month.

So, the paymasters in the Five-Sided Puzzle Palace are going to do their part in keeping the CAT IV’s fat, dumb, and happy. / s

Last edited 1 year ago by Claw
AT1 ret

But yet keeps turning away anyone that has any form of ADHD. There’s a felony waiver but not one for any ADHD, and if you “get it” when in you can still reup.

Navy is such a freaking joke now. They can wallow in the mess they are making.

pookysgirl, WC wife

I can’t believe they’re *still* doing that, and letting the confused individuals on tons of hormonal drugs in.

ADHD is the reason one of my brothers couldn’t serve and one of his sons went off his ADHD meds for over a year (getting busted by the cops twice basically because of it) before becoming a Marine then washing out due to the clot shot mandate. His older brother had a milder case and is still in the AF (thank God), but his younger brother (nicknamed Space Cadet if that tells you anything) went off his meds too in preparation for Army Basic this summer.

Green Thumb

They should call it the All-Points Logistics Battery Aptitude Test.

Wonder of Phildo and APL could get the contract?

Forest Bondurant

Speaking of APL, Phildo (and Psul for that matter), I went back and read the archived Wickre discussion a couple of weekends ago…and refreshed my memory of all the eloquent observations and insults that are pure GOLD.

Couldn’t stop laughing…

Hack Stone

Did you get to read the This Ain’t Hell Career Advisory Board entry on helping Psaul for his next job interview? If Hack May be so humble, that is probably his single greatest contribution to this blog.

And by the way, Elaine Ricci has been missing for over eight years. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Stacy0311

So now MacNamara’s Morons are now Milley’s Morons.
I’m old enough to have served with one of Project 100,000’s finest in the late 80s. I think the Marine Corps kept him around out of pity, knowing he’d be lost on civvy street.

I think he ended up working at CIF

Skivvy Stacker

The standards were pretty low when I was serving. So much so that I think that is the reason I hated it so much. I was serving with morons for the most part.
I had this Corporal from Alabama, black guy, thought he was God’s gift to the world, and was right about everything.
My last name is spelled L-A-U-E-R. Pronounced properly it rhymes with “flower”.
But oh, no….not to Corporal Rice. He absolutely insisted that my last name was “Low-row”, and pronounced it that way the whole time I was there. And never by Rank. Never “PFC Low-row”. Always; “Hey-Lowrow…go tell that girl to come over here; I wanna talk to her!”
“You mean that LIEUTENANT, Corporal Rice?”

Hack Stone

Been There, Done That.

As previously stated, the people making these decisions will never have to work alongside them.